Trebuchet

The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust by Heather Pringle A "fascinating volume detailing the Nazis' crackpot theories about prehistory and the Indiana Jones–style lengths they went to prove them. Employing a team of researchers, Pringle investigates Heinrich Himmler's private think tank, the Ahnenerbe, which dispatched scholars to the most inhospitable and distant parts of the world to discover evidence of ancient Aryan conquests and the Germans' racial superiority." (Publisher's Weekly) It's chock full of ideas for Nazi "Raiders of the Lost Ark"-type adventures; and shows how crazy some of Himmler's ideas really were. Hitler was surprisingly skeptical about much of Himmler's theories (which considering these literally involved magic and Atlantis is not particularly surprising). Himmler apparently believed Thor's legendary hammer was in actuality an ancient electicity weapon used by the proto-Aryans. It covers the famous expedition to Tibet, but also less well known ones to Syria, Norway, Sweden, and the Crimea. Also covered are planned expeditions to Iceland and Peru which were stopped by the onset of war. http://www.amazon.com/Master-Plan-Himmlers-Scholars-Holocaust/dp/0786887737/ref=ed_oe_p/103-4487125-5103852

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished? That one's on my Amazon Wish List. There's been a fair amount of good post-Soviet research on World War Two now that the Russians have opened many (not all) of their archives. In many ways the truth is better than the legend; the Germans were stunned at how hard the Russian people fought. I know about it, but then I lived in Minnesota in my teen years. I didn't learn about it when I lived there, though; I just pay attention when Minesota pops up in my other readings. That one looks like a good read. Another one I should check out.

Re: Killer Shrike's Increased Leathality System From the Oxford English Dictionary: discerning • adjective having or showing good judgement. So your swords will be smarter in combat under this system? I'm not really certain why anyone would want more lethality in a heroic game, but to each his own.

Re: What Non-Fiction Book have you just finished? Just finished A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II by Gerhard Weinberg I'm currently halfway through The Master Plan: Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust by Heather Pringle; a fascinating look at how even theoretically objective fields of study such as prehistory and archeology can be corrupted by evil.

Re: Street Sweepers It's got some appeal, but to me you're talking Pulp Hero levels of power; not supers - even low-level ones. In our 75+75 point Pulp Hero campaign I run a martial artist with SPD 4/DEX 20 who can dish out up to 8d6 of damage if he uses Levels. To me that's close enough to low-level supers or street sweepers despite the lack of spandex; especially since the team's mission is to travel the world righting wrongs and combating evil. We're just doing it in 1907 instead of 2008.

Re: Main Skills of a enery blaster? DEX is always nice; along with CON and END to power all those blasts as well as some defenses. Some Combat Skill Levels to compensate for range penalties is also useful.

Re: Clarification on the Power Skill

Re: Clarification on the Power Skill IIRC The Ultimate Skill has a pretty good exposition of the Power Skill. That's probably a good place to start.

Re: Is it Flash or is it me?

Re: I need some suggestions

Re: I need some suggestions By the rules it's illegal to use OIHID and OIF on the same Powers. Let's not confuse the new players by suggesting "GM permission" builds when simpler legal builds exist.

Re: Starting out We're usually all too willing to put in our 2¢ worth. Sidekick is a great way to get familiar with the basics before you tackle the full 5th Edition rules. Were I new at GMing, I'd also snag the Champions genre book and Crooks, Conquerers, and Killers which is full of predesigned supervillains. Not only does it provide plenty of villains for your new heroes to fight, but it's also full of examples of powers construction to learn from. Don't think you need to use the supervillains as-is either; you'd be amazed what you can do by changing special effects and "filing off the serial numbers" of the villains in the book. A mere name change can work wonders, especially if your players have access to all the same books.

Re: Starting out I'd start with a copy of Champions, since it covers the superhero genre within the Hero system. I started with pen and paper, but Hero Designer is invaluable when you start designing your own characters. It takes a lot of the drudgework (mostly basic arithmetic) out of character design. HDv2.42 is the last version of Hero Designer 2. While HD3 is now available, HD2 is perfectly servicable. PD is increased by increasing STR (Strength); ED by increasing CON (Constitution). Both can be bought up individually as well. Experiment with Characteristics in Hero Designer and watch what else increases as you purchase various Primary Characteristics (STR, CON, DEX, BODY, INT, EGO, PRE, COM. You'll find certain builds, because of the games's rounding rules, are more efficient. STR and CON in particular are good bargains; and DEX is always useful as well. Welcome to Hero!

Re: Issue 2 of my webcomic I like the new look. I've been following BoB since you first posted it here and I'm glad Issue #2 is finally going.

Re: Character for Review: Ilyusha

Re: Character for Review: Ilyusha Wouldn't it make more sense for her Russian to be her free 4 point Native language and to have 3 points of Fully Fluent English as her second language instead? With such a low CON for a brick, an investment in some Hardened defenses might be a good idea in the near future.

Re: Character for Review: Ilyusha I like her - but then I've got a soft spot for Russian heroines.

Re: How do you visualize combat? Great! The best kind of GM! I love color in a game. Repped.

Re: A question of power level

Re: A question of power level Reading this thread again, I find myself wondering if we've just been subjected to a drive-by trolling?

Re: A question of power level I don't know if it was your intention, but your attitude seems rather condescending. It's not like the only two options are very-low-powered supers or "Gods in Spandex." There is a very broad happy medium. Not everyone who wants a 250 or 350 point character expects his character to have superstrength, and FTL flight, and be invulnerable, and have instant regeneration and laser beam eyes, etc. Some just may want to have their characters be a bit more powerful than a typical pulp era hero.

Re: A question of power level My only objection, such as it is, is that 150 points is where we play Pulp Hero, so 125 points supers are rather low-powered and possibly only barely worthy of the name "super" although it's certainly possible to have powers at that level. In a situation such as you describe, I'd look to establish some sort of compromise. It doesn't do the GM any good to have a good low powered setting if his players all want something with more oomph but obviously it has to be something the GM is willing to run. And welcome to the Hero boards. There are a lot of long-time players here. I've been playing since 1993 myself.

Re: Character Effectiveness The real problem I see with coming with (yet another!) combat effectiveness rating is that not only are these dependent on the specific group of characters, but they're probably dynamic in most groups. IOW, not only will the rating change and evolve over time with both player experience and character Experience Points, but I strongly suspect that most GMs will (consciously and/or unconsciously) adapt their campaign to accommodate each character's strengths and weaknesses. So any CER will be at best a snapshot of a character at a specific moment in time (just as a character sheet itself is). It also cannot possibly calculate aspects such as team dynamics and player skill, which can be very important elements in how effectiveness a character is in combat.

Re: Underwater Combat Mastery Nice character, PG. Given his powerset, I think I'd just dump the ape, tiger, etc., and just stick with aquatic critters as DNA donors. It's not like great whites, etc., aren't strong and fast. You might consider dumping Climbing as something not really in sync with a water-based character. You do realize how fast 80" Swimming/5 SPD is? 149 MPH!

Re: on Ebay now: Wings of the Valkyrie Nice collection. (Man, it's been forever since I played Ogre/GEV. Good times.) BTW, I've got a copy of WotV as well if anyone else is interested. Mine's not in mint condition, though, but it's in good (playable) shape.